Many people avoid the word “God” because the symbol is so easily misunderstood. Everyone means something a bit different by the word. It is always important not to fall asleep into religious argon. Religious language is a poetic attempt to capture in words what can often only be experienced in silence.
Whatever our source of being is, it is beyond the verbs and nouns of human thought. Words may lead us to the threshold of this experience, but only silence can truly experience reverence before a fitful ocean or starry night.
When biblical poetry said, “Be still and know that I am God,” perhaps it was reminding us that the word “God” is a symbol, not an idea or definition. The symbol “God” is a place marker reminding us there is always a mysterious infinity between our clearest distinctions, something infinitely deeper than our most profound value, and something infinitely larger than our vastest understanding
Language is incredibly important when it comes to communication but we must never forget that reality is a place language cannot quite go.
To reduce the symbol “God” to a mental image means to lose the awestruck experience to which the symbol may refer. The symbol refers not to a belief but to an awareness, not to linguistic understanding but to a sense of awe most reverently expressed by silence.
The Persian poet Rumi had a teacher named Shams Tabrizi who made this point very well I think:
“Most of the problems of the world stems from linguistic mistakes and simple misunderstandings. Don’t ever take words at face value. When you step into the zone of love, language as we know it becomes obsolete. That which cannot be put into words can only be grasped through silence.”